


i think i kinda like you (but i might have had too much)

by waferkya



Category: The Originals (TV), Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 04:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i think i kinda like you (but i might have had too much)

  
_He remembers_.

He thought it useless, the blank slate of his head scrubbed clean and polished, and he wanted nothing more than to have that nothingness gone, filled up; now Tessa topped him off like a shotglass and Stefan is spilling everywhere. He crumbles to his knees, head bent low and lips stretched around a scream he can’t even voice because he’s drowning, see, his throat and lungs are flooded with water and gasping is the only thing he can do, even though it makes it all so much worse.

Stefan is dying and dying and dying all over again, and as he does he’s also slaughtering so, so many people—decades of murder ruffling their feathers in his head, all soaked in blood as the Ripper grunts and grins his way through life, careless and free and unafraid even of death; Stefan remembers and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t shut it out, can’t even begin to recall the blessing of not knowing, not remembering, not being able to see all this.

He tries to scream—his victims always, always did at some point; the Ripper, he liked it—but he can’t even hear himself over the ringing in his ears, bolts of electricity running through his veins as he remembers everything, every detail and the endless depth of his guilt and Lexi’s glowing smile and Damon killing her and Stefan wishes he was still in that safe, he wishes it so hard he’s surprised he doesn’t, eventually, find himself there.

Tessa has left him alone; left him to himself and the company of ghosts.

Stefan can’t breathe, so he starts running.

 

(“I’m worried,” Elena says; Damon wraps his hands around hers and tugs her closer.

“He’s perfectly fine,” he promises, with a tiny roll of his eyes. “He’s a big boy. You wanna call him again?”

“I don’t want _a call_ ,” she insists; he’ll never win. “I want him back here, Damon, we need him.”

Damon scrunches up his nose, “Not really, no. He doesn’t really have a role, in the big bad plan to bring Bonnie back.”

“We could use all the help we can get. And besides,” Elena bites her lip, squeezes Damon’s fingers hard enough to actually hurt. She adds, in a whisper, “What if he needs us?”

Damon’s mouth is a thin line when he says, “He doesn’t,” which is what Stefan said when they called him, not thirty minutes ago: _I don’t need you. All I need right now is space._

Elena looks shattered and Damon wonders, even if he gets Bonnie back from death for her, how long until that broken face comes back to haunt him?)

 

He’s been in New Orleans for three hours when it occurs to him that he’s not entirely alone, here; that in this city, this amazing, lively place where the air is crisp and nothing and all like the toxic stench of Mystic Falls, he might even be in danger.

Stefan pulls his leather jacket straighter down his sides and strolls down to the French Quarter, walking through and with the crowd of happy, drunk tourists; a merry band of college kids crashes around him like waves to a rock and Stefan pulls a tiny smile that catches the attention of one of the girls. She dances around him as they go, and her friends stick around, and Stefan is obviously not going to refuse the very human cover they so kindly provide.

He spins the girl around in a clumsy twirl—her name is Alice and he laughs and teases her about this Wonderland of a French Quarter she’s taking him to—but the noise and confusion, the music coming from seemingly everywhere, are not enough to keep him from noticing the angry stare of that herbalist woman, standing with arms crossed at the door of her shop.

A witch, Stefan decides, and pulls Alice closer as the group swerves left and past a bulky bouncer, through an archway and into a square courtyard where a delightful party is just coming to life.

Stefan’s attention is caught by one acrobat swinging upside-down, a single satin ribbon, hanging from a metal bar halfway through the second storey, wrapped around her ankle; she seems not to notice there’s nine feet of nothing between her and the ground and just about nothing keeping her from filling that distance with a broken neck—she seems not to care at all. She sees Stefan staring up at her and gives him a small smile before jerking up and twisting and shifting with grace—Stefan’s stomach is tied in a knot—until suddenly she has the ribbon in a loop, her hand clasped in it, and she’s spinning on herself.

Stefan’s companions have scattered already, so he heads for the bar and appropriates a stool.

Soon enough, he has burned his mouth and throat with half a bottle of scotch, and Klaus is sitting on his right. Stefan sighs, ever-so-softly, and drains the last drops of liquor from his glass.

“Have we met?” he asks, and lazily drags his eyes up Klaus’s arm, shoulder and neck, to look at his face, and he’s not surprised to see the feral, handsome features pulled in a tight frown, red lips pursed, eyebrows casting deep shadows over Klaus’s clear eyes. Stefan blinks. “Jesus, you look awful.”

Klaus shoots him an incredulous, outraged glare, but it barely lasts a moment; he downs his drink like it’s cough syrup instead of some freakishly expensive golden nectar of the gods, and then turns around on his stool a little.

“Why are you here?” he asks, half a bark in his voice; Stefan can’t fight back a tiny smile, Klaus playing tough is one of the least terrifying things he could be facing right now. “What do you want, Stefan? I’m not in the mood to play deus ex machina for your little band of misfits.”

“When have you ever been in the mood for that?” Stefan muses, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Klaus’s right eyebrow shoot up in a graceful, surprised arc.

“What’s gotten into you?” Klaus’s voice is softer now, a smoky murmur that sends a shiver down Stefan’s spine and fishes back up to the surface too many memories; some of them, Stefan is not even supposed to have. “Are you drunk?”

Stefan shrugs. “No, not really. Vervain taints the taste of liquor, and this, my friend, is really good stuff.”

Klaus doesn’t seem to appreciate the humor. “Tell me what you want, Stefan. You’ve wasted enough of my time.”

Stefan looks up to the acrobat again; all that fearlessness would make much more sense if she couldn’t die from a petty fall.

“Did you turn her?” he asks, pointing his index finger up because he knows it irks Klaus. Except Klaus isn’t even looking at him anymore, too caught up in whatever he sees at the bottom of his glass.

“No,” he answers anyway; Stefan opens his mouth to reply but Klaus cuts him off, “I did not turn any of the vampires you’ll see around New Orleans, Stefan, except, of course, the only one that counts.”

His little smile is ferocious enough that Stefan has to force down a shiver; Klaus must notice, his expression shifting to something contemplative, focused, now, truly on Stefan.

Stefan bites his lip and comes clean, “I don’t need your help,” he says, keeping his voice as straight as it goes. “I don’t need anything from you, really. I was just… around. Thought I might see this sensational French Quarter everyone’s talking about, and when it occurred to me you might be here too, it was a little too late.” He gestures to the amber liquid swirling in his glass. “Again, good stuff. And the service is impeccable.”

Klaus is smirking, and from what Stefan remembers, that is very rarely a good omen.

“You were just… around,” he echoes, amused by Stefan’s choice of words. “Out of Mystic Falls, away from your precious love Elena, thinking of spiking your liquor with vervain so you can forget yourself more quickly… I am surprised, Stefan. You’re a good-looking lad, boring, of course, but that’s what most people call sweet, I think. I thought your perfect little life would last a little bit longer.”

“Yeah, well,” Stefan shrugs, and there’s no bitterness in his voice because all the fight has been drained out of him in that quarry. “It is what it is.”

“Indeed,” Klaus murmurs, and they sit together for two more rounds, Marcel’s bartender refilling their glasses without them even really noticing, and then, without another word, they leave together.

 

Stefan tells himself he’s just walking back to his hotel, that Klaus only happens to be going in the same direction, but the truth is he’s following Klaus out of habit, out of a pitiful longing for those nights in Chicago, out of a severely misplaced hope that this once, just this once, the night won’t end in carnage. The truth is, Stefan is not sure he cares about anything. He’s having a hard time connecting with the outside world, when inside him all that pain—and it’s all sorts of pain from too much time being alive—is still stretching and yawning and coming back up to him.

Sympathizing is hard when your brother and the girl you love—the girl who used to love you—leave you to drown in a safe all summer, don’t even notice that you’re gone because they’re so busy having the time of their lives.

It’s part of why leaving Mystic Falls seemed like the most sensible solution, too; because there’s a part of him, the tiny crumble that’s not collapsing on itself out of guilt and water and blood filling up his lungs, that can only think about Silas, and how much Stefan wants to make him suffer. Stefan wants revenge but Elena wants Bonnie back and she needs Silas to do that for her; Stefan doesn’t think that that would be enough to stop him from ripping the fucking witch’s head off his neck and put it on a spear.

Stefan doesn’t think that Elena is enough anymore, and with Lexi dead, and Caroline wrapped around a hundred thousand other problems, it’s been a long time since he’s felt so alone.

The line of Klaus’s shoulders, his presence two feet away walking the dark streets of a city they could own, is a sight familiar enough that Stefan can breathe. It settles him, stills something that was shaking and turning in his chest, just looking at Klaus’s immortal, unchanged face.

What he needs, Stefan realizes, is something solid, something he can trust, even if he’s just trusting it to break him, tear him apart, use him and toss him away.

Stefan stops dead on his feet and says, “Make me turn it off forever.”

Klaus turns around, hands in his pockets he walks up to Stefan until there’s not five inches between them; Stefan could feel his breath, if Klaus had any left.

The wolf is smiling. “Ah, so you do want something from me.”

Stefan looks away, shakes his head with a bitter smile. “Just do it.”

Klaus tuts, poking him in the chest with a finger. “Where are your manners, love?”

“Sorry, I left them back in Virginia. My brother needs them more than me.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Klaus admits, eyebrows arching, red-stained lips pursed. _He’s playing with me_ , Stefan thinks, _which is unsurprising_. He knows Klaus now, he remembers; he’s not afraid, and it’s not out of carelessness.

“Will you make me turn it off? It was pretty fun last time,” Stefan insists, trying a lighter approach. He doesn’t even want it anymore, his brain is back online and he’s realized what an awful idea it would be to flip his humanity switch, but he’s not backing up now, no matter how hard he wants to scream his throat raw. Really, destroying himself is all he’s left.

“I’m curious, now,” Klaus murmurs, staring at Stefan’s face like he could ever read his life off of it. “What happened, Stefan?”

Stefan thinks of the simplest way to put it and eventually sighs, “Witches.”

Klaus hums, his face stays very still but in his eyes there’s a flash of fury. “Yes, witches. I have found myself at odds with their kind as well, lately.”

Stefan shrugs; he doesn’t mention the fact that Klaus looked as miserable as him, back at the bar.

Klaus takes a step back.

“I’m not interested in the company of the Ripper,” he says, staring pointedly up at Stefan, and Stefan gives him half a smile.

“Does that mean that you’re interested in my company, then?”

Klaus makes a big show of scoffing and rolling his eyes, but when Stefan keeps following, he allows it anyway.


End file.
